Rules and regulations are commonplace for vehicular parking. Such rules may include absolute prohibitions, such as areas in which no parking is permitted, or the rules may include conditional prohibitions, such as permit-only parking. Metered parking is also typical on public roadways. In addition to various types of parking restrictions, the rules may be enforced by either private or public agencies.
Monitoring parking that is restricted in any of the above manners is costly and time consuming. Typically, a person must visually inspect all of the restricted spaces periodically, regardless of whether cars are actually there. This task becomes more difficult when the spaces are distributed over a large area, such as a city block or a large, multi-level parking garage. While parking monitoring systems have been described, they are typically limited to the detection of the presence or absence of a vehicle in a particular location. Such systems are employed, for example, in garages to provide occupancy statistics, and to direct vehicles to open spaces. As a significant disadvantage, these systems do not apply parking restriction rules to determine whether a particular vehicle is parked in a spot where it should not be. As a further disadvantage, so-called ‘smart’ parking systems of the prior art employ transducers hardwired into a parking detection network. These systems cannot be retro-fitted to existing parking structures or infrastructures.
There remains a need for an automated parking enforcement system that can be adapted to existing parking facilities.